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Thomas
Thomas is a blue tank engine. He came to Sodor in May 1915 as a station pilot at Vicarstown until 1946, at which time he was transferred to Wellsworth following an incident with some trucks. Later that year, after rescuing James after his crash, he was given charge of the Knapford-Ffarquhar branch line and two coaches whom he named Annie and Clarabel. Persona Thomas is rather cheeky, but is good at heart and generally behaves well, except when he is getting into mishap. Thomas loves teasing the others and on occasion brags about his superiority, but is always brought down to earth in due course. If Thomas has one major character flaw, it's that he's forgetful, and slightly impatient. However, he's also optimistic and idealistic. Although their friendship has been turbulent at times, Percy is generally portrayed as Thomas' best friend. Basis Thomas is based on the Billington E2-Class 0-6-0T locomotives built for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway between 1913 and 1916. He is apparently one of the last batch built as only these engines featured his distinctive extended-side-tanks, projecting forward over the leading wheels and little downsweeps at each end of footplate. The E2s were introduced in 1915 to replace earlier members of the E1 class, which had been scrapped. The last five in the ten strong class had extended side tanks to give a greater water capacity, but all engines had two inside cylinders and driving wheels 4'6" in diameter. Livery Thomas is painted in the NWR's standard blue livery with red-and-yellow lining and the number "1" painted on his tank sides in yellow with a red border. |} Running plate Thomas's running-plate was allegedly a source of some contention to the Reverend W. Awdry during the course of the Railway Series. As originally drawn, it had a distinctive dip at the front, but none at the back. The story goes that, to Awdry's eyes, this meant that Thomas' buffers would be at different levels, an operational inaccuracy and impossibility. This seems curious on Awdry's part, as all the artists had drawn Thomas as having an extra-deep rear bufferbeam to compensate, thus putting the front and rear buffers at the same level. Be it a matter of taste or inaccuracy, the issue of the running-plate had to be settled: thus Thomas' excursion into the Stationmaster's house at Ffarquhar was arranged. After his repairs at Crovan's Gate, Thomas returned with a new running plate that was flat and level from smokebox to bunker. The E2's on which Thomas was based had dipped running-plates at both front and rear, and the Hornby Thomas model displays these features, having been retooled from a set of moulds formerly used by Hornby to make E2 models. His television counterpart however, retains the unique-forward-dipped running plate. Too much Thomas? While he may seem innocent enough, poor Thomas created a fair bit of trouble for Christopher Awdry and Egmont Books, publishers of the Railway Series, when the latter started asking for more books about the happy little tank engine. Granted, Thomas was the most popular character in the original Railway Series books, but Egmont went too far and thus the problem continues. With the advent of the television series, Egmont started asking for more Thomas and to this day Thomas has eight Railway Series volumes under his undercarriage. Two of the titles actually have very little to do with Thomas - Thomas Comes Home dealt with the adventures of the branch line engines during Thomas' visit to York, while Thomas and the Fat Controller's Engines actually only featured one story about Thomas, although he did appear in two of the other three stories. As a result of Thomas' fame, classic characters like Oliver and Bear have become largely neglected. Thomas and the toddler When the Reverend W. Awdry created Thomas, he existed only as a wooden toy made for his son Christopher. This engine looked rather different from the character in the books and television series, and was based on a LNER J50 or a Hudswell Clarke with smaller side tanks and splashers. He was painted blue with yellow lining, and carried the letters "NW" on its side tanks. Awdry claimed that this stood for "'N'o 'W'here", but later works would identify the railway Thomas and his friends worked on as the North Western Railway. Category:Engines